


Something New

by BirdofFlame



Series: Tony Stark' s Collection of (mostly) Superhero/Vigilante Teens (DC, Marvel, and Percy Jackson) [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Comic Book Science, Gen, Ruja (OC), Tags will probably be updated, but also some real science
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29479284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BirdofFlame/pseuds/BirdofFlame
Summary: Cadmus seems to have a new project: human-animal hybrids. When the Justice League breaks some of these new creatures out, they run into a few problems. Namely, the Creatures are sentient and share some of their DNA, not to mention are very attached to each other. What are they supposed to do with them?Terrible summary I know, I promise it's better than it sounds. This will be part of a DC/Marvel/Percy Jackson crossover series.
Series: Tony Stark' s Collection of (mostly) Superhero/Vigilante Teens (DC, Marvel, and Percy Jackson) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2165295
Kudos: 1





	Something New

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my first fanfics so please be nice! Ruja (MC) will refer to some of the Cadmus scientists as Outsiders, please don't confuse them with YJ Outsiders.  
> I plan to make this into a series crossover between DC, Marvel and Percy Jackson, and have the half of the plotline figured out. I promise it will be like no other crossover you've seen before. Feel free to put in requests. I can't promise I'll put them in but I'll try!

A few seagulls passed over a beach, thoughtless as to what might lay below them. They ignored the strange not-bird not-human that had washed in from the ocean. It was odd to them, wings and hands and legs and human but not, bird but not. Even if it were a true bird, they would flee. Owls were not their friends.

She awoke on a beach. The sky was clouded and waves crashed against rocks as a warning of an incoming storm. She pushed herself up off the sand, stretching her wings and wincing. They were stiff and sore. She was by the waterline, as if she had washed in with the tide like a shell, but she could not remember being in the sea. As she thought, she realized she could not remember anything before waking up. But she knew things, like how the world worked, like how she knew about the tide and shells. She stood. Things had names. Did she have a name? Memory flashed, brief and painful, a man’s voice. _“-ruja falhou em outro teste! Os mestres não ficarão satisfeitos! Coruja estúpida!”_ With the words came a feeling of pain and exhaustion, heavy wings and throbbing muscles. She slowly stretched them again. She did not feel the same pain as the memory, and did not think it had been a good experience either. But if she remembered that, maybe she could remember something else. What had the voice said? It was a different language than the others used, she knew. Others. There had been others, she was sure of that now.

_She was in a cage, surrounded by more cages. They were trapped like her, and they were like her. They could not fly, but they were the same. They even wore the same white suit. The room was tall and cylindrical, cages and water tanks stacked along the walls with equipment to get to the Creatures. A round blast door was on one wall. A noise from behind caught her attention, and her head swiveled towards the sound. Two people were there, one short and pale wearing the uniform of an Enforcer, the other taller and more brown, wearing the garb of the Observers._

_“That’s super creepy man,” the pale one said. “I know this one’s owl-based but that’s just wrong.”_

_“Shh,” the darker one said. “Você quer ser pego?” “No, but you know I think your plan is weird. They don’t think, it’s all animal brains.”_

_“Eles são humanos e, no mínimo, são capazes de reconhecer uma mão amiga. Eu sei que eles são mais do que Horjand’s treinando.” He faced her and offered something, held just outside the bars. “Aqui pequena Coruja, coma.” She turned so that her whole body was facing the men instead of just her head, reaching out to take the food he offered, eyes never leaving his face. When he bared his teeth her hand retracted and she hissed, fluffing the feathers on her wings to look bigger. The dark one was confused._

_“Told ya,” the pale one said. The dark one frowned, then seemed to realize something._

_“Foi o sorriso! Os animais mostram os dentes para mostrar agressão ou domínio! Esse foi meu erro.” He turned back to her, offering the food again, this time lips pressed closed around his teeth and curling up. She waited, watching for a moment, then slowly reached out and rested a hand on the food. His smile grew bigger, and she waited one more moment before snatching her hand and the food back. “Vejo?” He told the pale one smugly._

_“Yeah, but she’s not eating it.” They both looked at her. She looked back at them, trying to remember their sound of thanks. She had heard them speak in two different types, and though these two seemed to understand each other, the others had not._

_“O-obri-obrigado,” she said. They both started._

_“Did she just say thank you?” the pale one asked incredulously._

_“Sim, e ela teve que descobrir isso nos observando. Disse que eles eram espertos.” He looked back at her. “De nada, Coruja. Eu sou o Carlos-” he tapped his chest, “e esse é o Ryan.” He pointed to his friend._

_“Carlos.” She pointed to him._

_“Sim.” Carlos said. That was a sound for right._

_“Ryan?” She pointed at the other._

_“Sim!” He smiled, but didn’t show teeth. She pointed to herself. Carlos exchanged a glance with Ryan. “Ah, Coruja?” Carlos questioned. She frowned. Coruja was what the Man in White called her._

_“Ruja,” she said._

_“Coruja?” Carlos asked._

_“ **Ruja**.” _

_“Ruja isto é.”_

_**(A/N: Carlos wanted to try and befriend the Creatures to further study them, and he doesn't like the way the facility treats them. Ryan agrees with him, but doesn’t think they’re all that smart and really doesn’t want to get caught. To summarize their conversation, Carlos thinks the Creatures are smarter than just their animal instincts. After Ruja pulls away from the food, he remembers that showing teeth is an animal sign of aggression. When Ruja speaks, he comments on the fact that they are smarter than he thought, as Ruja would have had to learn by watching and listening to them. He then introduces himself and Ryan. The last thing he says is “Ruja it is”) ** _

She blinked. No more than a few seconds had passed, but she remembered. Her name was Ruja. She even wore the same white suit from the memory. Ruja looked around. She had already established she was on a beach, but where? A wave washed over her feet, startling her out of her thoughts. She shook her wings out, scattering water droplets and grains of sand before walking up the beach, leaving her wings open to dry. The sand, though grating on her wings, was pleasant under her bare feet, the small shells scattered throughout it unable to pierce toughened skin. The beach gave way to soft grass, and Ruja walked up a small hill. There were picnic tables scattered across it before the grass and dirt abruptly ended and turned into a jagged cliff. It rose well above her head and extended to either side as far as she could see, which was quite a distance in the early evening. She looked up at the cliff again. It was too high to climb, and her wings would not be dry until morning. She might be able to fly before that, but it would be tricky. The oncoming storm wouldn’t help either. Ruja needed a safe, dry place to rest. The picnic tables wouldn’t provide much cover, and neither would the grassy hill. She might be able to stack the tables against the side of the hill, but that wouldn’t be much better. She fluffed her feathers to get more air flow and stared at the cliff again. A pocket of shadow halfway up caught her eye, and she focused on it, eyes piercing the ever-darkening gloom. It was a cave, the entrance partly blocked by a jut of stone, the reason she hadn’t seen it before. It was within climbing distance. She took three steps and jumped, using her wet wings to power herself higher before latching onto the cliff. The climb to the cave was easy enough, there were plenty of hand- and foot-holds, though the winds began to pick up. Ruja slipped inside just as the rain started. It was dark, but not so dark she couldn’t see. The floor was covered in a thick layer of sandy dust. Ruja immediately laid down and rubbed her wings against it before sitting up. She settled cross legged and began running her fingers through her feathers, preening. This was a good place to settle and wait out the storm.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

A loud crash woke Ruja from a light doze. Her owl claws shot out over weak human fingernails and she peered out of the cave. One by one, the picnic tables below her were being whirled up and shredded in a small tornado that slowed enough to drop the bits of wood before moving on to the next table. A man in a yellow and green costume was apparently directing it, muttering and adjusting his control over the whirlwinds. She studied him for a moment, but he didn’t seem familiar. She decided to focus on his mumblings. “Stupid Flash! Always ruining my plans! Well, let’s see how he escapes these! If I reach the right speed I can keep him off the ground without actually tearing him apart. That would be very disappointing.” Ruja was curious. Who was this person and who was the ‘Flash’ that he mentioned? Normal people couldn’t control weather elements, so he wasn’t normal, but then again, neither was she. A memory twitched at the back of her mind, but she didn’t know what to focus on to call it forward. She was running through her thoughts again, trying to find what would trigger the memory, when someone new arrived.

“Weather Wizard? What are you doing by Metropolis?” The man who spoke hovered in the air wearing bright blue and red, and as soon as Ruja set eyes on him, the memory filled her mind.

_“Flash be careful!” the red and blue man called out. A Free human. The lab was in shambles, smoke coiling from various smashed monitors and lab equipment that still loosed sparks. The blast door had been torn away and Ruja could hear faint crashing through the walls of the cage room._

_“Calm down Big Blue, they’re not going to hurt us! We’re rescuing them!” The reply came from a red and yellow blur that stopped moving long enough for Ruja to see it was a human. Another Free human. He removed a lock from the cage next to her, then darted over to do the same to her cage. She was pressed back in the corner, wings up and forward hiding her, but not cutting off her view. The instant the door opened she leaped out, flying to land on the cage roof. The red and yellow Flash continued to unlock and open the cages, but the other Creatures did not move. Ruja frowned. Why weren’t they moving? She fluttered down in front of the cage the Flash had unlocked before hers. Her neighbor was a panda hybrid, much younger than her. He had only been out of the growth pods for a week or so and after the tests she had comforted him as best she could through the metal bars. She beckoned from the open door. The panda slowly crept forward, gradually rising to back feet. She grabbed his wrist and gently pulled him out into the open, wrapping a wing around his small frame. Ruja looked at the brightly dressed newcomers who had unlocked the cages. They were standing off to the side staring at each other in what appeared to be a silent conversation. The other Creatures were watching her and some had moved closer to the doors. They had to escape now while the Outsiders were distracted. Ruja tipped her head back and let out a piercing cry that made the other beings in the cave jump._

_“What the hell?!”_

_“Language!” The Creatures leaped out of their cages, flocking around her. Even the aquatic hybrids left the water tanks behind. Ruja tucked a small, trembling, male possum under her other wing and a female cougar and wolf stepped up beside her to help protect the rest. More predators stood forward, following their fellows lead. They all stared at the two intruders._

_“Y’know, that’s- that’s kinda creepy,” Flash said. “And I don’t mean just the staring.”_

_“Yeah,” red-and-blue said. “The owl hybrid seems to be their leader, but I don’t imagine Cadmus let them interact with each other much.”_

_“I can hear you,” Ruja said. Her voice had a bit of an odd accent because of the newness of her words and her human/owl vocal range._

_“My apologies, we did not know you could talk or understand us,” red-and-blue said. “I am Superman and this is The Flash.”_

_“Odd names.” They sounded more like titles. “I am Ruja.”_

_“Nice to meet you Ruja. We’re here to free you guys, so if you could…” he trailed off, frowning, then exchanged an alarmed look with The Flash. They both turned back to the Creatures. “There’s a kill switch-!” Ruja collapsed to her knees as a wave of pain hit her, the other Creatures falling with her. Distantly, she heard the Superman shout “Shut it down now!” but the pain tore through every cell, digging its claws in. Then it stopped. Every single creature stilled._

_“Are you-” They exploded out in every direction, running without knowing where they were going, needing to get away, escape whatever it was that had hurt them. The flight after a failed fight. Ruja soared out the broken blast door crashing into and past smaller versions of the Free in the cage room._

_“What- hey!” Ruja didn’t stop. She flew out a hole in the solid rock of the lab’s wall, distantly aware of being followed by other Creatures and one of the Free. Open sky stretched around her and she flew, leaving the island and all it’s pain behind. Her mind was cloudy, fading, adrenaline wearing off. She faltered, vision darkening, then fell, crashing into the sea and losing consciousness._

Ruja blinked, returning to the present. The rest of her memories slotted into place, the lab, the tests, Carlos and Ryan, the Creatures. She had left them. She had been weak, now she needed to find them, help them, protect them. She looked down at the Superman, who was now fighting the Weather Wizard. He had been there. Perhaps he knew what had happened to the other Creatures. Ruja watched them fight, studying their movements, remembering what worked and what didn’t. Weather Wizard was knocked unconscious, defeated, his wand taken. The storm dissipated, rain stopping and clouds fading into a clear, brightening sky. She had slept longer than she thought. Superman picked Weather Wizard up, ready to fly away when Ruja glided out of her cave. He started, then peered at her.

“Ah… Ruja?” He looked surprised.

“What happened to the other Creatures?” Ruja asked, landing in front of him.

“Well, most of them are at the old Mt Justice, but a few are missing. I could take you there?” He seemed unsure. “I will have to drop this guy off first though.” Ruja nodded.

“Where is this ‘Mt Justice’?”

“Well, it’s not really a giant mountain anymore, got blown up and all, but it’s down that way.” He pointed down along the cliff.

“I will meet you there then.” Ruja took off, silently cresting over the cliff to float along and look for the crater. She made sure to fly high enough that she would look (mostly) like a bird to any human that might happen to see her. A city glowed to her right. Metropolis, She thought. The Outsiders had said the island was out to sea West of it and North of Gotham, but Gotham had been said to be a dark, dreary city covered by a thick smog. This city was bright and clear, giving off a cheery feel in the rays of the rising sun. Twelve minutes or so into her flight, a red-and-blue blur slowed at her side, the wind of Superman’s arrival buffeting her a bit.

“You fly pretty fast,” he commented.

“Hollow bones,” Ruja said. “Owls float.”

“Cool. We’re about a third of the way to your friends then.” He paused, seeming debating something, then asked, “Could you tell me about Cadmus? What it was like, how they treated you?” She looked at him, head twisting a bit farther than a normal humans. After staring at him for a moment she asked,

“Why?”

“Well, we want to know what happened to you so we can help and take down Cadmus.” She hummed.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything. Start from the beginning please.”

“Dr. Horjand, the lead Observer, was combining human and animal DNA, trying to create a race more powerful than the human, more evolved. To do that he needed to experiment. From what I gathered, the early experiments were done on existing clones, trying to rewrite their DNA. It caused a great deal of pain and did give the clones new abilities, but also defects. I never learned the specifics, but the last of Project 13’s first Creatures, Generation A, died of their defects the day the Outsiders started trying a different combination process. Horjand started fusing the DNA before the clones were fully grown. This worked better, giving the new Generation B more abilities and less defects, but also animalistic features. Horjand’s leaders seemed to think this an improvement and ordered the Outsiders to make the new features more prominent. Seeing as how going back had been what originally gave Generation B the differences, they combined the animal DNA with the clone DNA before putting them in the growth tubes. This created Generation C, my generation.”

“What happened to Generation B?”

“The early combination of their DNA’s worked at first, but it mutated and killed them. Only one lived long enough for me to see it.” Ruja looked away, out at the ocean. “If that was anything to go by, their deaths were horrific. It would have been kinder to just snap their necks.” They flew in silence for a minute, mourning the deaths of those they never had the chance to meet.

“Is there anything else?” Superman asked quietly.

“I’ve only told you how we were created. All of Generation C are teenagers. Once we reach fourteen, sometimes older, the pods can no longer force grow us without killing us. Stasis was… well, it just didn’t work on us. That’s why they kept us in cages. The water tanks were added later, and the aquatic Creatures can survive on land, but are more comfortable in the water, which was where the Outsiders wanted to study them.”

“You keep referring to ‘outsiders’. Is that what you called the humans?”

“‘Human’ is their species like Creature is mine. I call them Outsiders because they are not in cages like we were, but neither are they free. The Observers answer to Horjand, the Enforcers answer to Deathstroke, who follows Horjand, who in turn obeys someone else.”

“Deathstroke?” Superman said, alarmed. “He was there?” Ruja nodded.

“Like I said, he’s the Enforcers leader.” her gaze darkened. “He liked scaring the Creatures, the younger ones especially. I and most of the other predators would threaten back.”

“Do you know how long you were there?”

“After leaving behind my pod? Three years. I am sixteen.” She didn’t mention that it was Carlos who told her this, or that he had helped her learn to speak. She had tried to remember the other Creatures' ages as well, filing away the information as those who were sixteen like her, to the newest at fourteen, like the panda and possum she had protected, which brought her to her next point. “All of the predators are female, and the prey are all male.”

“Really? You’d think they’d make guys the predators, given human history.” Ruja frowned at him.

“That’s exactly why they _didn’t_. Apparently with females being ‘weaker’ we needed a bit of an edge. It was _supposed_ to make us ‘equal’ to males, which we already were, and was completely unnecessary.” Superman could see this was a touchy subject. It seemed Dr. Horjand had been a bit sexist. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t really seen any female scientists or guards. He hadn’t really seen any difference, which made him feel a bit uneasy. He saw girls as equal to guys… right?

He was pulled out of his thoughts when Ruja tipped down. They had arrived at Mt. Justice.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to leave useful criticism and feedback! I've already started the second chapter.


End file.
